


Turing Test

by viceroyvonmutini



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, dealing with that episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3295736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceroyvonmutini/pseuds/viceroyvonmutini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are 5 stages to grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turing Test

Caroline Turing would have reacted clinically.

‘There are five distinct stages,’ she would have said, ‘to grief.’

Root thinks she’s experiencing Anger: Shaw would have wanted that.

This was an unending anger, the type of anger that doesn’t go away: it was the type of anger that leads to bitter old men leading miserable little lives because the world just wasn’t kind to them and there’s always a bone to pick.

Root would burn those men to dust.

Root would burn everything.

Harold feared Root.

Harold feared Caroline Turing.

Caroline Turing had been a vessel for what Root was: focused, with a goal and nothing to lose. She had skills, hatred for a broken humanity and a remarkable ability for torture.

Harold had seen what she was capable of and didn’t doubt for a second what she could do and Root knows this. Relishes it. What she needs to be is strong and anger was her strength that held her at bay and kept her caged.

She is focused and determined and desperate.

In the warehouse, faced with no Shaw and an unquenchable fury that wracked her very being, Root realizes that maybe Caroline Turing was not what Harold feared at all.

She was oil. Shaw had been her fire and now she was burning and out of control because her anger had ceased to be contained. It had held her together but now it set her free and she raged.

This was what Harold feared. He had seen what she was capable of more than she herself had.

Root found she didn’t mind. Didn’t mind the Harold knew and feared her, didn’t mind that this was what she had been running from, what she had been trying to change. She didn’t even mind that it wasn’t her usual style: she was all finesse and fine points and small details but that was the scalpel and this was the hammer.

It didn’t make her feel any better.

‘Anger is swiftly followed by bargaining’ informs Caroline Turing, sat poised behind her desk.

Root doesn’t linger on this long. Never bargain unless you have leverage, but she’s desperate. She begs. She begs her God to help her.

What does she get in return?

Nothing.

She gets told to stop. She gets told to stop like a child.

This angers her. Who is She to tell her? Has not she done everything asked of her? Has not she followed Her instructions to the letter? Has not she sacrificed enough in this war, in her service to this deity? And yet it gives her nothing in return.

She wants to rage again and she thinks she sees Harold’s eyes flicker in fear for just a second.

He wants her to stop. Before it consumes her.

If she had the energy, she’d laugh.

‘Depression is necessary for Acceptance’ chimes Caroline Turing, now standing by her window.

She leaves.

Root can’t do this. She’s all anger and fury and hatred and indeterminable sadness. She can’t hold that all together. She can’t hold that together and look Harold in the eye and say ‘trust me.’

She doesn’t even trust herself any more.

She doesn’t think they would either.

So she leaves.

She’s going to break.

And then she’s going to let it consume her. She’s going to hunt down everything and everyone and then she’s going to let it destroy her because for Sameen, it was worth it because Sameen was enough.

‘And after all that, there is Acceptance.’


End file.
